March 17th – St Patrick’s Day – was the Regiment’s special day of the year when the massed trumpeters, all twenty four of them, sounded reveille, before the band struck up and marched round the barracks playing old regimental tunes. Apart from looking after the horses and mounting the guard, all duties were suspended for the day. All disciplinary sanctions regarding the excessive consumption of alcohol were also lifted, allowing the men to celebrate St Patrick’s Day by getting blind drunk. Just as long as things were back to normal the next morning, nothing was said, even to those who literally had to be carried to their beds by our military police. In the evening there was a concert and a raucous sing-song. Beer was free, and I vividly remember trumpeter Patterson lying on a table, trumpet in mouth, drinking the beer that was poured through the top. He did not attempt to play lights out that night!
For many men, these evenings provided brief breaks from the control the army exerted over our lives from morning to night. This went much further than the bugle calls which woke us in the morning and put out the lights at night, or the ever-present NCOs who ordered our working day. The Regiment itself was omnipresent, and could sanction everything from whom a trooper married to whether he grew a beard. Even our top lips belonged to the King, and to shave off what fluff might have accumulated there was, at least in theory, a court martial offence. This law continued until mid-way through the war when, through the mud and the shell holes, an order arrived to say that ‘moustaches were optional’.
There was an enormous gulf between ourselves and the officers, so that other than soldiering, a troop officer, ex-Harrow and Sandhurst, could have had nothing in common with an orphan from a Bamardo’s home. It was a gulf that was the accepted norm, particularly within a cavalry regiment, when almost without exception every officer had to come from a wealthy background to afford the lifestyle. They were all ex-public school boys,1 a few of whom had perhaps been to university but all of whom had certainly attended Sandhurst. Poor officers were only relatively poor, those who might have to borrow a polo horse from the Regiment. Not that we were supposed to know. Yet it was an open secret among the ranks who had money and who was struggling to get by. Later on, during the war, money did not matter a damn, but pre-war it was very important to keep up appearances, and many officers might have been surprised to know what rumours, unfounded or not, had seeped their way down to the men as barrack gossip. For an officer rarely spoke directly to a trooper, and we could not speak to an officer except through the intermediary of a senior NCO, and then as we stood to attention.
While our lives were tightly controlled, the officers lived in relative freedom, pursuing mainly sporting or hunting interests, the one unstated rule being that they maintained the reputation of the Regiment in all its forms. Great emphasis was placed on sporting prowess among the officer élite, and when we were off-duty, some of us would walk up to Tidworth Park where the officers played polo. Polo was always a great thing in a cavalry regiment; all the wealthier officers owned their own horses with civilian servants looking after them, while we had one officer, Major Hunter, who actually played for England.
By contrast, the use of our spare time appeared mundane. A round of cards was a common pursuit, as was Crown and Anchor, a gambling game on which there were always players willing to chance their arm, even though it was frowned upon by the army. Crown and Anchor was the simplest of games: a canvas sheet squared off into six areas, each of which had one of six symbols, a spade, club, diamond, heart, a crown and an anchor. Money was placed on any of the squares and three dice each carrying the same six symbols were thrown. If three hearts were thrown, for example, the banker paid out three times the money on the heart, scooping up the rest. Not surprisingly, the bankers were rarely out of pocket and were always the sort who could look after themselves, so there was hardly any trouble. The only permitted game was Housey Housey, or bingo as it is now known. Organised amongst the men, it didn’t take much for the caller to form a league with a friend and only by keeping a close eye on exactly which numbers were pulled from a bag could a fair game be enforced.
Every summer, it was traditional to mark the King’s birthday, when the Brigade’s three Regiments joined up on Perham Downs for a ceremonial review. The King wasn’t there, rather, a senior general would take the salute, watching the Dragoons, Hussars and Lancers performing various trot-pasts. On parade we sat tight, gripping firmly and rising with the horse, rather than posting in the saddle. The full Regiment turned out, including officers’ servants who, because of their other duties, usually escaped parades and were therefore more lax when it came to spit and polish. Just before one of these parades, a servant came into the barracks in a panic. His helmet wasn’t clean and he needed to borrow one from a younger recruit not far enough advanced to take part in the parade. The Regiment had just finished a trot-past when this servant began complaining that the helmet was too big and was chopping down on his ears, so at the next opportunity, when the Regiment was dismounted, he tore up handfuls of grass to cushion the inside of the helmet.
Unfortunately for him, it was traditional to finish the parade with all three Regiments performing a charge over 200 yards. We were gradually brought into line as senior regimental trumpeters sounded the canter, then the gallop and finally the charge, the three Regiments riding as one, all immaculately dressed, with polished jackboots, glinting brass helmets, and, with arms locked, swords pointing forward between the horse’s ears. The speed is that of the slowest horse, about 25 mph, making sure that no one broke the line as we passed before the assembled military dignitary. To the onlookers, it was a perfect exhibition of collective horseman-ship. No one had noticed the grass which, during the canter, gallop and charge, had silently slipped beneath the helmet of the officer’s servant and now covered his face. But he did not escape the attention of his troop officer and a subsequent charge, nor all manner of jokes as the Regiment made its way back to barracks.
Whenever we rode back to Tidworth, we were allowed to relax and permission would be given to smoke. The officers could smoke cigars, but while on horseback, troopers were restricted to smoking pipes, not cigarettes. This suited me. I had never liked cigarettes, and instead smoked a twopenny cherrywood pipe, partly to look and feel older in front of the others, often lighting up my pipe while cleaning the saddlery, or, as others smoked, to help me fit in.
In the summer months of July and August, the Regiment went on manoeuvres. Built up from Troop and Squadron training during early July to Regimental and full Brigade manoeuvres by August 1914, we were, as it happened, in a heightened state of readiness when the war broke out. Training took place on Salisbury Plain and was for those classified first class soldiers. I had just qualified, having finished all my drills by July. Each day the Troop went out practising various left wheels, right wheels, and troop actions.
With so many horses on manoeuvres, it wasn’t uncommon for one to get loose and charge off. These horses either turned up at the barracks by themselves or were picked up along the way. Whoever had lost his horse did not receive a lift home but was expected to walk back. This was fair enough, had it not become an unwritten rule that if an NCO lost his horse, he would take the first trooper’s horse he came across, leaving the poor private to walk back. That summer, Bridges, the squadron leader, decided to put a stop to tins practice.
Troop manoeuvres had progressed to Squadron manoeuvres, when one fine morning we got the order ‘Action front, dismount, three rounds rapid fire.’ As usual, the horse holders took the reins of three other mounts, wheeling round to get under cover, as those who were to come into action ran forward, knelt down and opened up with blanks, at 200 yards. To orchestrate this action, our troop officer, Swallow, dismounted just as Shoeing Smith Sandy passed his horse. ‘I couldn’t resist it,’ he told us later. The horse had raised its tail and Sandy, needing no further invitation, put his rifle up behind the horse’s backside and pulled the trigger. Others were already in action, muffling his shot, and Swallow’s ho
rse ran haywire – down a slope and on to the road beyond. ‘Whose horse is that?’ inquired Hornby. Swallow had to admit that it was his. ‘Well, you know the orders,’ said Hornby.
Crestfallen, Swallow was forced to trudge back to Tidworth that evening, while in the barracks the men took turns to buy Sandy a drink. No one had a high opinion of Swallow, but I don’t suppose for one minute that Sandy realised that he would have to walk back. Poor horse, apart from the shock, it would have hurt to get a blank fired at so sensitive an area, and it must have itched for days.
Final manoeuvres, when the whole Brigade came together, took place just as war broke out. On this occasion, ‘H’ Battery came over from the Artillery Camp at Bulford Barracks, a short distance from Tidworth, and commenced live firing. It was during these final manoeuvres that we were ordered over to Sidbury Hill to charge some men of the infantry. The idea was to give them a feel of what it was like to be attacked by cavalry, to demonstrate that when infantrymen kept their nerve and lay flat, it was a devil of a job for those on horseback to run them through. If they stood up and ran, they were far more vulnerable to being run down by the horses. The infantry lay six yards apart as the Regiment galloped through their lines. As we passed, I looked to my right to see a face peering up with an expression of considerable discomfort; he patently didn’t like the experience one little bit.
Editor
Ever since 1911, when General Sir Henry Beauvoir de Lisle had been appointed to command the 2nd Cavalry Brigade at Tidworth, the Dragoons had been preparing for the expected outbreak of hostilities. As de Lisle in his memoir, ‘Reminiscences of Sport and War’, wrote, ‘Knowing that war was inevitable and imminent the two years at Tidworth were spent in training for war. Major-General Allenby, who was Inspector of Cavalry, was equally confident that war must come, and we had many conferences at my home as to the best way to train the cavalry to meet it.’
Ben
With the news that war had broken out, Tidworth went crackers. Everyone was very excited at the prospect of a fight, troopers firing off blank cartridges in a show of delight. We were going to war; we were going to do something. No one stopped to think about what that actually meant. We were about to wipe the floor with the Germans and anything else was inconceivable.
Our first instructions were to let everything go rusty. Nothing was to be polished – buttons, cap badges, buckles, stirrup irons – anything that could reflect sunlight and so give notice of our presence in France. Items blancoed in peace time such as horses’ ropes, gun slings, the lanyards that fitted in our top pockets, were washed down or stripped. New, darker horse halters were distributed, while our sword belts, in peace time whitened by pipe clay, were handed in to stores. Even our white handkerchiefs were discarded to be replaced by red and white spotted alternatives.
The order to mobilise for War
All belongings had to be sorted out. Personal items had to be parcelled up to be forwarded by the army to nearest and dearest. Anxious not to lose treasured possessions, I sent a separate parcel from the local post office, a shrewd move as it turned out, for the army parcel never arrived.
Orders were issued that each man must take his ‘full kit’ to France, to which was added an extra shirt, one pair of socks and underwear. Like our private possessions, everything that was spare had to be put into kit bags, labelled and taken to stores. This meant we lost – as it turned out, forever – our distinguished full dress uniform, but other than that, in footwear alone we bagged up our stable clogs, one spare pair of standard ‘Hilton’ army boots, one pair of Jack boots and a pair of Wellingtons worn underneath our strides. All these stores were later raided by the Quartermaster Sergeant to help fit out the Kitchener men.
Tidworth was a hive of activity heightened by the arrival of a steady stream of reservists from August 6th onwards. These reservists were allotted to different troops, and more beds were drawn from the stores to fit them into our barrack rooms. There were umpteen strange faces, and not knowing any of them I was intrigued to watch these old soldiers, some with seventeen or eighteen years’ service, settle in and renew old friendships. They knew the ropes and slotted back into army routine quickly, going off to be inoculated, and wasting no time in getting all their hair whipped-off with clippers. The younger recruits, such as myself, waited for the order to visit the barber’s, and were a little more circumspect about how much we lost – given how short the war would be! With everyone busily preparing to leave, most of these old-timers were not spoken to until we got to France, and with old nicknames being banded around, it was a while before we found out who they actually were.
During peace time, many of the military’s horses were put on the reserve, but when the army was mobilised these horses were recalled. Two days after the outbreak of war, I was detailed to travel with six other troopers and two veterinary officers to Birmingham’s R. Whites’ mineral water factory, commandeering heavy draught horses, not for us, but for the artillery and Army Service Corps. Our job was simply to wait around until the veterinary officers had passed each horse fit and healthy, and, once each horse was numbered, ride one and lead another to the local train station. These mammoth horses had never had anyone on their backs before, and didn’t understand our spurs’ commands. Each time we dug them in, they stepped backwards as if to get away. We soon tumbled to the fact that if we wanted them to move we would have to give verbal commands.
At the station a train was waiting, and once loaded, off it went. The job done, I and a couple of other troopers had time to look round the R. Whites’ factory, where our presence aroused much interest, and some over-excitement among some of the ladies working there. We were soldiers about to go to war and in August ‘14 this impressed everyone.
Flushed with pride, and giddy at the prospect of going to France, I returned to Tidworth. During my absence, the Squadron and Troop lists had been pinned up on the notice boards, so I went to have a look. My eyes scanned the notice: Lieutenant Swallow; Johnstone, my troop sergeant; Patterson; Tilney; Cumber; Thomas; Bell; Jury. I was dumbfounded, my name had been omitted from C Squadron’s 4th Troop list. Stubbornness quickly over-rode bitter disappointment. ‘I cannot be left behind and I will not be left behind!’ I thought, so returning later I carefully rubbed out the bottom name and added my own. The next day Sergeant Johnstone spotted the alteration and, unmoved by my determination and enthusiasm to go, changed it back. Once more my name appeared on the list, at which point Johnstone marched me to the Squadron Office to see Captain Hornby. ‘Why are you doing this?’ said Hornby. ‘You know your age, you are not entitled to come out with the Regiment.’ ‘According to my enlistment papers, sir, my age is officially nineteen and with all due respect I am coming out.’
Hornby knew I was a fully trained soldier but he also knew I was still sixteen years old. Desperate to go, I even threatened to abscond with the 9th Lancers, although this cut no ice with Hornby. ‘One way or another I will be there when the Regiment reaches France/ I insisted. Finally he said, ‘Fair enough, it’s against my wishes but you shall come.’ I don’t know who dropped out but I can’t imagine all the reservists were itching to fight. Several were veterans of the South Africa campaign and from experience may not have been so keen to go to war again.
Editor
Hornby’s change of heart proved no error of judgement. In a letter he wrote in February 1915 to Adrian Carton de Wiart, he included the following:
‘… that boy Clouting, son of the groom, did most awfully well, a real tiger with an exceptional cool head on him, so good that Bridges took him away to the 4th Hussars with him. Clouting was in C Squadron so I saw quite a lot of him, in fact I tried to leave him behind when we left as he was so young but he flatly refused to be left.’
Ben
Before leaving Tidworth, each trooper drew a hundred rounds of ammunition. Our rifles were to remain empty until otherwise ordered, so ninety rounds were stashed in the bandolier each trooper wore around the shoulders, and ten rounds in a pocke
t. About this time we were allocated the horses we were to take to France. Apart from the horses which carried the Regiment in peace time, others had been called up from various riding schools and hunting stables. Inevitably, I was not given the one I had trained on, but, rather disappointingly, an old riding school ‘hack’, distinguished by its doctored tail. This meant that instead of having a horse with a long flowing tail, I had one with a bob that couldn’t grow back. Yet any annoyance that I had not been given a real troop horse was tempered by the knowledge that I was only too glad to be going at all. If not the youngest man in the Regiment, I was certainly the youngest to go to France, no argument about that.2
Editor
The Regiment left for France on the night of Friday August 14th with 27 officers, 524 men and 608 horses, as part of the BEF’s Cavalry Division, under Major-General Allenby. Five brigades of cavalry went with the BEF to France, the 4th Dragoon Guards belonging to the 2nd Cavalry Brigade, under Brig-General H de B de Lisle. This Brigade also included the 9th Lancers, 18th Hussars and H and K Batteries of the Royal Horse Artillery.
On that Friday night, the 4th Dragoons paraded outside Assaye barracks, before leaving around dawn for the train station a short distance away. A Squadron left first, followed by B and C Squadrons in successive trains. Their destination was to be Southampton, the first troops arriving at the docks in drizzling rain around 4.30am, the last about six hours later.
Teenage Tommy Page 5